For a very long time in my life, I wasn't necessarily content. Everything was too overwhelming or too sad or too scary or just somehow not right. My mind was constantly spinning, trying to find an answer to my problems. I probably had a touch of depression and a dash (or two) of anxiety, but to me, it was more than just words you could Google the definition of. To me, it was my life. It was staring at my ceiling for nights on end willing myself to sleep but the sheep I was supposed to count never came. It was a racing heart and shaking hands over the thought of nothing and everything all at the same time. It was my life and I wasn't sure if it was going to be worth sticking around for.

I stayed in this mindset for years, seeing the glass half-empty wherever I possibly could. I pitied myself and was waiting around for somebody to come scoop me up out of my misery. I thought I needed to be saved by someone and as a result, I allowed myself become a greater victim of my thoughts.

I did nothing to break this cycle until one day a 7-year old boy exclaimed something so simple, yet it had the power to open my eyes.

"Mornings are so full of possibilities!”

On the morning in question, it was raining and the sky was completely overcast, and the particular 7-year-old in question had a brain tumor the size of a grapefruit.

Somehow he had the ability to look at things with a perspective I never thought possible. He could barely read and he still wrote most of his letters backward, yet he possessed this skill to be happy all the time despite the hell he was going through. If this child could find light in what should have been darkness, then I could find light in my own life.

Since then I have believed, very powerfully, in the power of perspective. The way I see it is, despite being a feeling, happiness is also a choice. Everything in your life, from your bowl of cereal in the morning to the way your boss treats you, can be looked at in a different way; you just have to choose to look at it in that way. If you look hard enough, you can find happiness in the smallest of things.

Every morning I open my eyes and say to myself, “today is going to be a good day” and even if I don’t always fully believe it, I have the power to make it true.

If you want to be happy, then just be. The second you start believing you can be happy and you can smile even on the darkest of days, the second your life will start to change. You are as strong and as powerful as you wish yourself to be.